Robert Greenwald received the HLS Lambda Leadership Award on February 28 at the organization’s annual conference on legal advocacy issues for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. Greenwald is a lecturer on law and is the director of the health law clinic and the LGBT family law clinic at the WilmerHale Legal Services Center.
“It is truly an honor to receive the HLS Lambda Leadership Award,” said Greenwald. “Over the past twenty years, as a senior clinical instructor at HLS WilmerHale Legal Sevices Center and as a lecturer on law, I have had the privilege to teach and work with many HLS Lambda students. I consider this award recognition of the work we have done together to address critical health, HIV, and LGBT rights issues.”
Conference organizers say they selected Greenwald to receive the award for his work at the intersection of health care and LGBT rights.
“He’s been a mentor to many Lambda members, and through the clinic he provides legal resources to members of the Boston LGBT community who otherwise would not be able to afford legal help,” said Lela Klein ’09, political chair of Lambda. “He is a leader in the LGBT advocacy community both in Massachusetts and nationally, and in the Harvard Law School LGBT community.”
Attendees at the fourth annual conference, entitled “Queering the Health Gap,” discussed legal issues around LGBT health disparities and the law. Panelists – including leading academics, activists, advocates, community members, and health practitioners from around the country – spoke on topics including health in prisons, reproductive technology, access to and delivery of health care, HIV/AIDS, disabilities, and mental health.
Greenwald joined the Harvard Clinical Program in 1987 and founded the AIDS Law Clinic and Medical Legal Services program at the Legal Services Center. He currently manages and develops the Center’s HELLP unit, which provides legal services in the areas of employment, consumer, insurance, disability, and estate planning. In addition, Greenwald runs an independent policy and law consulting firm serving government, private and community sector clients.
Greenwald has served as the director of public policy and legal affairs for the AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, as an advisor to the President’s National Commission on AIDS, as a board member of the AIDS Action Council of Washington D.C. and the National Lesbian and Gay Bar Association, and as a visiting professor at Northeastern University School of Law. He holds a B.A. from Vassar College and a J.D. from Northeastern University School of Law (1986).